Puzzle.



L. 0. KOEHLER & w. M. BUTLER. PUZZLE.

APPLICATION TILED JULY 22, 1908.

922,002. Patented May 18, 1909,

WITNESSES INVENTOHJ' Iowa 0.26672 Zer.

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, UNITED STATES PATENT @FFTQE.

LOUIS c. KOEHLER, or TAYLOR, PENNSYLVANIA, AND WILLIAM M. BUTLER, or NEW YORK, N. Y.

PUZZLE.

Patented May 18, 1909.

Application filed July 22, 1908. Serial No. 444,840:

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that we, LOUIS O. Konntnn, and WILLIAM M. BUTLER, both citizens of the United States, and residents, respectively, of Taylor, in the county of Lackawanna and State of Pennsylvania, and the city of New York, borough of Manhattan, in the county and State of New York, have invented a new and Improved Puzzle, of which the following is a full, clear, and exact description.

This invention relates to games or puzzles.

The object of the invention is to produce a puzzle which will be interesting and amusing, and which will provide a test for ones ingenuity and resourcefulness.

More specifically, the puzzle relates to that class of game devices which comprise slides mounted upon a board, which slides must be moved from place to place and re-arranged in the solution of the puzzle.

The invention consists in the construction and combination of parts to be more fully described hereinafter and particularly set forth in the claims.

Reference is to be had to the accompanying drawings forming a part of this specification in which similar characters of reference indicate corresponding parts in both the figures.

Figure 1 is a plan showing the puzzle with the blocks arranged in the order which they should have when the puzzle is to be solved, and Fig. 2 is a similar view but showing the arrangement of the blocks when the puzzle has been solved.

Before describing the details of the con-s struction of the puzzle, it should be exlaimed that the puzzle is known as The Merry Widow Puzzle. Upon the board referred to there is the representation of the head of the ITidow and in the diagonally opposite corner the block represents the head of the Prince. At the side of the block showing the iVidow's head there is a vacant place or trysting spot, and in the solution of the puzzle it is required to move the blocks from side to side or up and down, so as to permit the Prince to be advanced into the vacant place beside the Widow. The intermediate blocks which separate the Prince from the Widow are lettered, and when the solution of the puzzle is to be commenced they are arranged in reversed order. The solution of the uzzle requires not only that the Prince he advanced to the space beside the Vv idow, but the blocks must be re-arranged in their proper order, which is exactly reverse of that in which they are found when the puzzle is to be solved. When re-arranged in this manner they will spell the words The Merry Nidow.

Referring more particularly to the parts, 1 represents a board upon which the puzzle is worked. This board has a raised rim 2 which enables a plurality of slides or blocks 3 to be retained on the face of the board, as shown. These slides or blocks are arranged in horizontal and vertical rows, as indicated, and they are all of the same width but of different lengths. In the upper left-hand corner the Prince block 4 is laid, and in the lower right-hand corner the Widow block 5 is placed. Beside the Viidow block in the lower row there is a vacant spot or trysting place 6, which is to be occupied by the Prince The remaining area of the board is completely covered by lettered slides or blocks 7, which have large letters upon them which spell the words The Merry .Vidow in a reversed order when the puzzle is to'be solved, the T which begins the words, being disposed in the space just to the left of the vacant spot 6, as shown in Fig. 1. In addition to the large letters which spell the words The Merry Widow, the blocks are provided with small letters in their lower righthand corners, and when the blocks are arranged in their reversed order, as shown in Fig. 1, these small letters read: Will She Get Him. The blocks are of two sizes as respects their length. The following large type letters are placed on long blocks 8: the T, the M, both-Rs, one of the i Vs, and the O. The Vfidow block 5 is long and also the Prince block. The other blocks are all short blocks 9.

The length of each block is of great importance, as attention is called to the fact that it is necessary for certain blocks to fill out the complete length of the vertical rows in both the reversed order, and in their proper order when the puzzle is solved. For instance, in the arrangement shown in Fig. 1, the second vertical row has two long blocks and two short blocks, and this row should be of the same length in reversed order. From an inspection of Fig. 2, it will be seen that in the second vertical row there are two long blocks and two short blocks. Similarly in .be evident that the the right-hand vertical row in the order shown in Fig. 1, there are one long block and two short blocks, and in the corresponding row in Fig. 2 there are one long block and two short blocks.

Attention is called especially to the small letters in the corners of the blocks. The employment of these small letters makes it obligatory that each block have a particular position in the solved or original position of the blocks, that is, even if there are two We, as shown in Fig. 1, there is a definite position for both of these Vfs, and they cannot be used interchangeably. One of the W blocks has a smallwin its right-hand corner, while the other has an s. This means that the upper W in the upper horizontal row, as shown in Fig. 1, must be the last Vi", or the last block in the finished order, as shown in Fig. 2. Likewise with respect to the two blocks R, although with these blocks the matter is of less importance for these two blocks are of the same length. However, the two it blocks must be arranged in the order shown in Fig. 2 when the puzzle is finished, so that the blocks will not only read on the big type, The Merry Widow, but on the small type they will also read, Will She Get Him in reversed order. In other words, the two It blocks must positively be arranged as shown, and the one having the G in its corner cannot be disposed at the right in the finished order, otherwise the requirements in solving the puzzle will not have been fulfilled.

With the blocks arranged as shown in Fig. 1, the problem is to move the Prince down into the trysting place by sliding the blocks backward and forward upon the board, and then to ire-arrange the letter blocks so as to give the arrangement shown in Fig. 2, that is all the large type of the letter blocks should spell The Merry Widow, while the small type will spell i fill She Get Him in reversed order. The l Vidow must not be moved from her position and the Prince havingonce been advanced into the vacant space 6, must not be moved out of it.

Special attention is called to the fact that the blocks are of different lengths, and to the fact that the Prince block is one of the long blocks. This very materially adds to the difliculty of solving the puzzle, for it will Prince cannot be moved laterally into any space which was formerly occupied by a short block, for instance, if it were intended to move the Prince toward theright in the upper row, as shown in Fig. 1, having moved the upper W to the position of the 0, it willnot be possible to effect this, as the space will be too small to receive the Prince block. In this way a very interesting puzzle is produced, the solution, of which is diflicult but not impossible.

The slides which represent the Prince and the Widow may be considered special slides, and they are referred to as such in the claims following.

Having thus described our invention, we claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent,

1. A puzzle comprising a board, a plurality of movable lettered slides of different kinds arranged thereupon in rows, and a special slide normally disposed remotely from a predetermined point upon said board, said special slide being similar to the said lettered slides of one kind only and interchangeable therewith, whereby it may be advanced to said predetermined point.

2. A puzzle comprising a board, a pair of special slides normally disposed remotely apart on said board, and a plurality of lettered slides having different dimensions partly covering the remaining area of said board, one of said special slides having the same dimension as certain of said lettered slides and being interchangeable therewith, whereby it may be advanced to the other of said special slides.

3. A puzzle comprising a board, a special slide, and a plurality of lettered slides partly covering the area of said board arranged in rows, said slides being of the same dimensions measured in one direction and of differ ent dimensions measured in another direction, said special slide being interchangeable with the said slides of greatest dimension, and said board having a vacant space, when all the slides are in position to which said special slide may be advanced.

4. A puzzle comprising a board, a special slide mounted thereupon, a second special slide normally disposed remote from said rst special slide, and a plurality of slides of different sizes partly covering the remaining area of said board, said last slides having two sets of letters thereupon forming words reading in opposite directions when said slides are arranged in a predetermined order, one of said special slides being of the same size and interchangeable with the said slides of one size only.

5. A puzzle comprising a board, a special slide mounted thereupon, a plurality of other slides nearly covering the remaining area of said board, said last slides having letters thereupon adapted to be arranged to form words, said special slide and sundry of said plurality of slides having dimensions rendering them interchangeable, whereby said special slide may be advanced through the body of said plurality of slides.

In testimony whereof we have signed our names to this specification in the presence of two subscribing witnesses.

LOUIS C. KOEHLER.

- WILLIAM M. BUTLER.

Witnesses: I

F. D. AMMEN, JOHN P. DAVIS. 

